Dear readers, I have spent the latter half of the week pondering whether this is good bad art or bad good art and settled on “deeply unsettling”. As are some of this week’s selection of reads, which also feature regret, anxiety and a sprinkling of redemption.
1. Saying goodbye to breast implants
Sarah Lavender Smith became “flatter than my husband” once she had finished breastfeeding, so she got implants in an effort to fit a nearly impossible beauty standard: a thin body with round, fuller breasts.
Twenty-two years later, aged 56, Smith decided she’d had enough. She details the steps that led her to explant surgery – and talks to others who have had mastectomies.
Conditioned at home: Smith remembers watching her mother “test the quality” of her breasts by placing a pencil under them to see if it would fall or get stuck from the sagging.
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
Further reading: Polly Hudson confessed a deplorable secret about motherhood to a friend – and it changed her life.
2. Life after a lip-sync scandal
Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus were cancelled in 1990 when their manager revealed they were not the voices behind Milli Vanilli but merely “non-singing performers”. The music media went all in, the pair’s recording contract was denuded, and their Grammy award rescinded.
Pilatus never recovered, dying of an overdose, aged 33, in 1998. Morvan has lived long enough to see the duo’s output be reconsidered. Now he’s received a Grammy nomination for the audiobook of his memoir, in which he says he “went all out because the truth will set you free”. And yes – Morvan did actually narrate it.
How big were Milli Vanilli? They sold more than 37m singles and albums in 1989 alone. But the contract they signed ensured Morvan “never received a cent”.
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
3. ‘We see the same patterns every time’
When Tamsin met Mike, she was nearing 50 and “in a rut” in her marriage and career. Within two years she had left her marriage, lost her home, quit her job, spent her savings and racked up tens of thousands in debt – all in service to the whims of a romance fraudster. Tamsin recounts her ordeal and a two-year recovery process that still feels like it’s only the beginning.
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“We see the same patterns every time. It’s the grooming, the absolute love bombing, where the fraudster finds out everything about you and mirrors it back to create that perfect soul mate. Then it’s the trauma bombing – getting your sympathy – and gaslighting when you question anything.” – Anna Rowe, co-founder of the UK romance fraud support organisation and thinktank LoveSaid.
How long will it take to read: Six minutes.
4. Chris Hemsworth: not as ‘classically alpha’ as you’d expect
Thor. God of Thunder. Totem of masculinity. And apparently a “creation” that Chris Hemsworth – racked by severe performance anxiety and panic attacks – was happy to hide behind once his physical transformation into the Marvel superhero was complete.
“I was expecting a very different kind of human, who was more classically alpha,” says the director Bart Layton of meeting Hemsworth. “And what you find is someone who’s really thoughtful and sensitive and insecure in the way we all are.” The pair discuss their new film, Crime 101, in which the good guys aren’t purely good and the bad guys aren’t purely bad.
Hemsworth’s proud achievement: A Road Trip to Remember, a documentary series that centred on his father Craig’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. “It empowered him for a period, and stimulated memories that were being taken away from him.”
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
5. The lawyer fighting for justice for Epstein victims
“Everyone is supposed to be equal in the eyes of the law,” says the California-based lawyer Lisa Bloom, “but what we have seen here is that if someone is rich and powerful they often get a pass.”
The “here” she refers to is the case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which continues to reverberate long after his death in a prison cell in 2019. As the Trump administration drip-feeds more evidence from the so-called Epstein files, Bloom discusses her compensation fight for the disgraced financier’s victims.
Regrets: Bloom advised Harvey Weinstein on ways to discredit his female accusers as journalists began investigating allegations of sexual assault. She has since called the work a “colossal mistake”.
How long will it take to read: Seven minutes.
Further reading: Marina Hyde applies the blowtorch to the powerful men who knew about Epstein’s crimes, and helped him out anyway.
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